Sound effects

A month ago, exactly on the day my 2 boxes with paintings from Perth arrived on the New Zealand airport, I received an email from a gallery in Melbourne. They had found my website and were full of praise; “Wonderful, refreshing, interesting! We can, we want, we will, we love, etcetera.” All nice words.
This was badly timed, because on this blog I just had written that I never would exhibit anymore via a gallery. Now I haughtily had to remain to my principles, without throwing in my own windows (Dutch proverb).
I wrote back that I didn’t longer exhibited via galleries, but this didn’t mean they could not sell my work … (building up a constructive silence) …
I offered them to buy my paintings for a reduced price. Then it was up to them to sell them for a higher price.
I never expected to hear from them anymore, because 9 out of 10 emails is only bullshit.
And then … (whipping violin sounds) … I received an email that the gallery owner couldn’t find my phone number on my site.

WHAT!!! A PHONE CALL???

That means I had to cope with my 2 biggest phobia at the same time!!! Phoning AND talking English … (sound of a gun cocking) …
What to do? I could start with an uncontrollably and long cry. Or shall I drink half a bottle of wine? Then I’m better in talking. I already had bloodshot eyes, so who minds?

The creepy thing of a phone call is that uncomfortable silences are scaring the hell outta me. My desperate solution then is to fill them with talk asap. Not informative talk, but incoherent ravings. Thereby making unintelligible jokes, which again causes awkward silences.
And it’s not even an insanity or something, because afterwards I can repeat every syllable! Afterwards my own shrill chatter echoes through my head for hours. Awful!

But I had no choice …
So we did a phone call. A small 5 minutes.
And nothing new was discussed. The lady from Melbourne gave it up soon and stayed very polite. Thanked me again for the discount and said that she was still interested. And that we would talk about the rest by email … (sound of a fading horse gallop).

After one week I got an email again. She wanted to buy 2 of my paintings to start with!
Isn’t that great?! (stadium applause)